State Dept. Spokeswoman Psaki Denounces ‘Enemies of Islam’

A series of horrific car bombings in Baghdad yesterday have reportedly left more than 80 dead and many more injured. The attacks appeared to target festivities marking the end of Ramadan in Shi’ite neighborhoods, which prompted comment from State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said in an official statement:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the cowardly attacks today in Baghdad. These attacks were aimed at families celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The terrorists who committed these acts are

enemies of Islam

and a shared enemy of the United States, Iraq, and the international community. (HT:

As horrific as these bombings are, obviously fueled by sectarian differences, it’s troubling to see that the Obama administration has now put the U.S. government in the business of denouncing “enemies of Islam.”

The first reason this development is troubling is the blinding hypocrisy and deliberate selectivity of it all.

As Elizabeth Harrington at CNS News reported last year, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson testified to Congress last year that the violence by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram targeting Christians wasn’t religiously motivated — one day after Boko Haram bombed a church service on Easter Sunday.

Any government employees that observe that Islamic terrorists themselves wrap themselves in the mantle of doctrinal Islam will quickly find themselves without a job. And when members of Congress have confronted senior administration officials as to whether elements of radical Islam have declared war on the U.S., those officials have angrily protested thatCongress merely asking such questions puts them in league with al-Qaeda.

Then there’s the constitutional problem. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment requires the U.S. government to remain agnostic on these sorts of questions. It’s doubtful that Jen Psaki is going to be denouncing respective sides in Northern Ireland as “enemies of Christ,” especially when State can’t bring itself to even admit that attacks on Christians by Islamic groups are religiously motivated.

The administration has some serious problems in this regard. If the NYPD showing the documentary The Third Jihad to police officers is a grave constitutional crime, then so too should be the Department of Justice Civil Right Division screeningInside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think for their employees on government time (not to mention the chutzpah of anyone claiming to know “what a billion Muslims really think”).